Fic: A Way Back (4/5)
Title: A Way Back
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Ninth Doctor/Rose
AU from end of Parting of the Way through The Christmas Invasion.
The Doctor doesn't regenerate after taking the time vortex from Rose. It doesn't mean he okay though, far from it.
Hurt/comfort and eventual Ninth Doctor/Rose
"Right, I'll go and see what your mums doing," Mickey said, as soon as he and Rose had helped the Doctor to a seat by the TARDIS console. "You won't go anywhere before I get back, will you?"
"Course not," Rose replied. "And you be careful, no going up to the roof and trying to help. I don't wanna be having to look after you too."
Mickey looked like he was going to say something, then thought better of it, choosing to look vaguely disappointed instead.
Shivering, the effort of walking having driven up his fever again, the Doctor sat hunched over as he tried to ignore the waves of dizziness that threatened to plunge him back into unconsciousness. He had to focus on what he knew of the Sycorax, which admittedly was as much as he'd hoped, what variety of technology they might be using, which was useless speculation until he knew where in their planets history there were, and how he could stop them.
Mickey barely seemed to have left before the TARDIS lurched in a way that had nothing to do with its own propulsion systems, and they clung to the seat in an effort not to be thrown to the floor.
It wasn't successful, and the next thing the Doctor was aware of was that he was lying on the floor by the console, Rose's pink hoody folded up and placed under his head. Rose herself was nowhere in sight.
Outside he could hear Harriet Jones and some men whose voices he didn't recognise. Then Rose joined in trying her best to calm the situation.
There was a sharp crackle of an energy weapon being fired and then scream. Male. Not Rose.
He had to do something, if only he could think. Think, that was it. If only he could think clearly then for a little while he could override his useless sick body, force it to do what he wanted at least for a little while and get on with making the Sycorax leave.
Override, neural override that was it. The Time Lords had only ever really thought of the body as convenient and ultimate disposable vehicle for transporting the mind around in. All he needed was his mind to be working. No, more than just working, the Doctor told himself, he needed it to be better than that. He looked around, dizzy and disorientated. He should have some neural stimulant somewhere in the console room, all TARDIS' had carried it, in case of psychic attack. There hadn't been many species that could best a Time Lord in psychic ability, but the Time War had seen the creation of weapons that had made it necessary.
The TARDIS lights flickered, drawing the Doctor over to a drawer low in the console. He fumbled opening the case inside it, dropping it twice before he managed to prise open the lid. The two small hypo-injectors each held a single dose. Hoping that he wouldn't need more than that he took the first and pressed it against his neck. The effect was almost instantaneous, and the Doctor fell to the ground, his mouth open in a silent scream as for a brief, blinding moment it felt as if his head might explode. Then just as quickly it was over.
Panting, he knelt on the floor, his hands pressed flat against the gratings. It had worked. It was strange, rather like he was controlling a virtual reality simulation of himself. All the aches and pains and crushing exhaustion were still there, but they were abstract things that he could now ignore. At least until the neural stimulant wore off, then...well he'd deal with that when it happened. Although he doubted it was possible to feel much worse than he had previously.
He could hear Rose trying to bluff them. It was never going to work, even if she'd known the correct rules and regulations, the Sycorax weren't exactly known for respecting anything but strength and military might. No, they'd seen the Earth and thought it was weak, undefended, an easy target. Time to tell them how wrong they were.
The Doctor knew he looked ridiculous wearing nothing but faded pyjama trousers, but he could hardly take the time to get changed. He doubted whether the stimulant would given more than half an hour of useful activity. It should really have given double that, but in his already weakened state he knew he couldn't count on it.
The first thing he needed to do was remove the immediate threat to the people who'd been mind controlled. He took advantage of the fact that the Prime Minister was arguing loudly with the lead Sycorax who had been doing most of the talking and all of the killing. Walking quickly out of the TARDIS, he went directly to their control station, ignoring for the moment the angry shouts from the aliens and the delighted one from Rose.
It took less than a minute for him to realise how they'd been controlling people. Blood control, he'd not seen that in years, it was nostalgic really, well it would have been if wasn't being used to try and murder a few hundred million people. Not that it actually would, it could compel them to stand at the edge, but it couldn't make them take the final step and jump. So he called the Sycoraxs' bluff and pressed the button before anybody had a chance to stop him.
The Doctor explained what he'd done. He wasn't entirely sure anyone had actually understood any of it beyond the fact nobody was dead. Talking at the speed his mind was working didn't really make for the most coherent of conversations.
"Who are you?" The Sycorax asked, snarling and angry now that their plan had been ruined.
"The Doctor," he said grinning them. "Heard of me? Earth is under my protection. So unless you want trouble you should leave." The smile disappeared. "Right now."
There was a moments pause, then the Sycorax snarled, "We shall have this planet, Doctor. You name yourself their protector, so a challenge now stands." A second Sycorax brought forward a pair of swords. It took one and then threw the other down in front of the Doctor. Its red eyes, almost glowed at the prospect of battle. "Let us settle this by right of combat."
All around him from arching galleries, balconies and walkways the Sycorax cheered and snarled and beat their gauntletted fists on their bony breastplates. The Doctor looked down at the sword. If he didn't pick it up they'd probably shoot him where he stood, yet if he did take it he doubted he could win the fight. Picking it up though would give him a few more moments to try and do something, anything that might turn things in his favour. So he did.
"Outside then," he shouted, trying to make himself heard over the noise. "We'll do this properly, where the world can see. They might as well I'm doing for them."
The Doctor had no illusions about anybody actually seeing him, they were half a mile up: it was a relief really, he didn't want an audience. The cold air and the altitude would work in his favour, the Sycorax preferred warmth and humidity to prevent their exoskeletons from becoming too hard and dry.
Bringing the sword up into a defensive position, the Doctor decided that he didn't like it. He was reasonable certain that he'd actually learnt to fence once, it might have even been during his last regeneration or it could have been before that. He wasn't sure, things were jumbled, especially where his last body was concerned - he'd spent so many years living in so many places with not the faintest of clues who he was or what he was doing there.
The sword he was holding wasn't designed for fencing, it was too heavy, just an ugly lump of metal with a pointy end and bit of an edge. No finesse, but maybe that was better, he thought, there shouldn't be anything glamorous in ending a life. He was aware that his mind was running with far too many thoughts, that it was drifting off from doing what it was supposed to be doing. Equally he wasn't sure how to make it stop.
The Sycorax however had no such distractions and as soon as the Doctor's guard wavered, it struck out, the tip of its blade cutting into his side.
The Doctor stumbled back, confused more than hurt, the disconnection between his body and mind making the pain is a distant, abstract thing, like he was watching it happen to somebody else. Blood loss however was something he knew could do without, even if Time Lord could lose more than a human and be completely fine. Yet it didn't seem to be bleeding as it should. Energy crackled across his fingertips as he touched the wound and suddenly it all made sense.
There was energy still trapped in him. A warring mix if conflicting energy left by his failed regeneration and the heart of the TARDIS, and the cause of the heat still burning through him. It needed draining, like infection from a wound. Then he could heal. All he needed to do was decide the best way to remove it.
The Sycorax wasn't willing to let him have the time to think about this, and opened up another cut, this time on his arm, with a roar of triumph.
Rose was holding Harriet Jones' hand, scared to look, but too scared to look away.
The Doctor felt the same twist of energy, drawing closed the edges of the cut. "That all you've got?"
Sycorax snarled at him, teeth bared in its fury. "Kneel before me and die. You are beaten. You cannot win."
"Never a good idea to tell me that," the Doctor said enthusiastically grinning at him, wanting to unsettle his opponent. "It never works out well. You should be the one surrendering." He lowered his sword. "You could surrender now and you could all leave here unharmed. You have my word."
With a roar the Sycorax advanced on him again, battering the Doctor's sword, until he lost his grip on it. Then with a yell of triumph it dropped its own weapon and grasped the Doctor tightly by the throat. Lifting him off his feet with easy, it shook him, and slammed him down hard against the deck.
Rose was yelling at them to stop, that they were going to hurt him, kill him.
The Doctor stared up wild eyed at the creature pinning him to the ground. He couldn't breathe, which didn't make sense as he knew his respiratory bypass system should give him five minutes at least. The scene in front of him wavered, a host of memories crowded in. Echoing stone halls on Mars, a robot's cold fingers about his throat. The open deck of another ship, one of the shield platforms high over Arcadia, the sky was burning overhead as the bombardment increased.
He blinked and groaned, the world briefly coming back into focus. He couldn't reach his sword and honestly, he wasn't sure what he'd do even if he could. There was one possibility left and he pressed his hand against the side of the Sycorax's head and let their minds meet. It was frowned upon, but he was desperate, and it wasn't like the High Council could haul him in and put him on trial. "You want to know what I can do?" he said directly into its mind, his voice raw from all he saw and felt. "Then look."
The Sycorax was still for a moment and then its grip loosened and it screamed, its head jerking back as it tried to escape.
"Look!" the Doctor shouted, mere inches from its face, his grip tightening on its head. "Look at it. Now do you still want to fight me? Or do you want to run?"
The Sycorax screamed again, beating its head and the air around it with its fists. A glancing blow struck the Doctor's hand, breaking the link, both of them falling back on the deck.
Even with link broken the Sycorax howled. Lurching to its feet it stumbled away from. Whether it meant to go so close the edge, the Doctor had no idea, yet the result is the same. One moment it was on the edge, its head clutched in its hand, the next it was gone, tumbled over the edge and into oblivion.
"No!" The cry is torn from him, he hadn't meant for this to happen, for it to die. He hadn't meant to take another life. "No." It was a whisper now, as he looked the blood on his hands. The Doctor knew that was his own, remembered touching the now vanished wound on his side, but the symbolism, the guilt, still stood.
Shivering, weary, and all too aware that the stimulant was starting to fail, the Doctor used the dead Sycorax's discarded sword to help lever himself to his feet. He stood swaying slightly as he glared at them with cold fury. "You wanted to watch one of us die. Now one of your own is dead. Let that be enough. You will leave and you will never return. The Earth is defended. It will always be defended."
With no further argument the Sycorax teleported them and the TARDIS down into a deserted, litter strewn back street, not far from the Powell Estate. Still leaning on the sword for support, the Doctor was content let Rose do most of the talking. He was rubbish at what he called being domestic at the best of times.
"What's that?" Rose asked suddenly, looking up at the sky. Five huge beams of energy streaked high above them, before converging and shooting out towards the retreating Sycorax ship. The explosion a few seconds later flashing across the sky like virulent green lighting.
"They were leaving," the Doctor said looking at the continued flashes and crackles of light above them in anger and disbelief. "We'd won. I'd stopped them. No one else had to die."
"I'm sorry, Doctor, they could have come back or others like them," Harriet said, standing her ground. "This was too close, too many lives could have been lost."
"Not as many as they've just lost," he retorted. "That was murder."
"They came to enslave and kill us," she said refusing to raise her voice in anger. "I did what I had to do."
"You did it once you were safe. If I'd lost, would you have ordered them to fire if you'd still be onboard?" he asked, challenging her to contradict him. "Could you have ordered it then?"
"Yes, I would, Doctor. You may only see the insignificant human Prime Minister of a small island, but this country has stood alone before in the face of danger before and we did what had to be done no matter the personal cost." There was defiance and fire in her eyes, but her voice was still level, like she was addressing her cabinet. "So tell me Doctor if this were your planet, if it were your people facing slavery or annihilation how far would you go to keep them safe?"
Once he'd had that choice, more than half his lives ago, he'd had that chance. He could have destroyed the Daleks completely and forever. And he'd failed. Worse, he'd refused, he'd told himself he didn't have that right or power to snuff out an entire species. Even one so focused on destruction as they Daleks. If he'd known in that moment what was to come to, could he have done it? Or would still have doomed them?
Perhaps this was Harriet Jones' deciding moment, perhaps she had saved Earth from some threat he's not even realised. After everything that happened with Satellite 5 becoming the Game Station he doesn't know if he can trust his own memories of what the future should be. He hung his head, sick and exhaustion washing over him. He didn't have any answers for her, at least none that made him feel better about any of it. He knew he could destroy her career, just a few words, six little words that was all it would take and it would all come tumbling down, but what would be the point? They had the weapon now, and a terrible as it was there were far worse people to have control of it than Harriet Jones.
Realising that he wasn't going to answer her, Harriet stepped forwards, offering him her hand. "I appreciate everything you've done for us, Doctor, I really do, but you're only one man and one day maybe you won't be here or you'll be too late. You can't ask us to be defenceless, not when you know what is out there."
"Don't become the enemy. Don't make me have to stop you." He looked at her, pain in his eyes, then turned away, too dispirited and tired to argue any further. "Come on, Rose, time to go."
TBC
**Notes**.
The neural stimulant is a plot device for this story, but the ability of the Time Lords to control their body, even down to the cellular level, using their mind is, once again, from 8th Doctor novels and quite possibly Classic!Who as well, although I couldn't quote which episodes (I've not seen all that many of classic series) .
The chance the Doctor had to destroy the Daleks once and for all come from the 4th Doctor episodes The Genesis of the Daleks.
Yes I know this should have been the last part, but it totally got away from me, and Harriet Jones wanted her say, and while I don't agree with her call at the end in shooting the Sycorax down, they were beaten, I get why she did it.
I know this part was rather lacking in Doctor/Rose interaction, but the last part which will be posted in the next few days will be pretty much nothing else.
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Ninth Doctor/Rose
AU from end of Parting of the Way through The Christmas Invasion.
The Doctor doesn't regenerate after taking the time vortex from Rose. It doesn't mean he okay though, far from it.
Hurt/comfort and eventual Ninth Doctor/Rose
"Right, I'll go and see what your mums doing," Mickey said, as soon as he and Rose had helped the Doctor to a seat by the TARDIS console. "You won't go anywhere before I get back, will you?"
"Course not," Rose replied. "And you be careful, no going up to the roof and trying to help. I don't wanna be having to look after you too."
Mickey looked like he was going to say something, then thought better of it, choosing to look vaguely disappointed instead.
Shivering, the effort of walking having driven up his fever again, the Doctor sat hunched over as he tried to ignore the waves of dizziness that threatened to plunge him back into unconsciousness. He had to focus on what he knew of the Sycorax, which admittedly was as much as he'd hoped, what variety of technology they might be using, which was useless speculation until he knew where in their planets history there were, and how he could stop them.
Mickey barely seemed to have left before the TARDIS lurched in a way that had nothing to do with its own propulsion systems, and they clung to the seat in an effort not to be thrown to the floor.
It wasn't successful, and the next thing the Doctor was aware of was that he was lying on the floor by the console, Rose's pink hoody folded up and placed under his head. Rose herself was nowhere in sight.
Outside he could hear Harriet Jones and some men whose voices he didn't recognise. Then Rose joined in trying her best to calm the situation.
There was a sharp crackle of an energy weapon being fired and then scream. Male. Not Rose.
He had to do something, if only he could think. Think, that was it. If only he could think clearly then for a little while he could override his useless sick body, force it to do what he wanted at least for a little while and get on with making the Sycorax leave.
Override, neural override that was it. The Time Lords had only ever really thought of the body as convenient and ultimate disposable vehicle for transporting the mind around in. All he needed was his mind to be working. No, more than just working, the Doctor told himself, he needed it to be better than that. He looked around, dizzy and disorientated. He should have some neural stimulant somewhere in the console room, all TARDIS' had carried it, in case of psychic attack. There hadn't been many species that could best a Time Lord in psychic ability, but the Time War had seen the creation of weapons that had made it necessary.
The TARDIS lights flickered, drawing the Doctor over to a drawer low in the console. He fumbled opening the case inside it, dropping it twice before he managed to prise open the lid. The two small hypo-injectors each held a single dose. Hoping that he wouldn't need more than that he took the first and pressed it against his neck. The effect was almost instantaneous, and the Doctor fell to the ground, his mouth open in a silent scream as for a brief, blinding moment it felt as if his head might explode. Then just as quickly it was over.
Panting, he knelt on the floor, his hands pressed flat against the gratings. It had worked. It was strange, rather like he was controlling a virtual reality simulation of himself. All the aches and pains and crushing exhaustion were still there, but they were abstract things that he could now ignore. At least until the neural stimulant wore off, then...well he'd deal with that when it happened. Although he doubted it was possible to feel much worse than he had previously.
He could hear Rose trying to bluff them. It was never going to work, even if she'd known the correct rules and regulations, the Sycorax weren't exactly known for respecting anything but strength and military might. No, they'd seen the Earth and thought it was weak, undefended, an easy target. Time to tell them how wrong they were.
The Doctor knew he looked ridiculous wearing nothing but faded pyjama trousers, but he could hardly take the time to get changed. He doubted whether the stimulant would given more than half an hour of useful activity. It should really have given double that, but in his already weakened state he knew he couldn't count on it.
The first thing he needed to do was remove the immediate threat to the people who'd been mind controlled. He took advantage of the fact that the Prime Minister was arguing loudly with the lead Sycorax who had been doing most of the talking and all of the killing. Walking quickly out of the TARDIS, he went directly to their control station, ignoring for the moment the angry shouts from the aliens and the delighted one from Rose.
It took less than a minute for him to realise how they'd been controlling people. Blood control, he'd not seen that in years, it was nostalgic really, well it would have been if wasn't being used to try and murder a few hundred million people. Not that it actually would, it could compel them to stand at the edge, but it couldn't make them take the final step and jump. So he called the Sycoraxs' bluff and pressed the button before anybody had a chance to stop him.
The Doctor explained what he'd done. He wasn't entirely sure anyone had actually understood any of it beyond the fact nobody was dead. Talking at the speed his mind was working didn't really make for the most coherent of conversations.
"Who are you?" The Sycorax asked, snarling and angry now that their plan had been ruined.
"The Doctor," he said grinning them. "Heard of me? Earth is under my protection. So unless you want trouble you should leave." The smile disappeared. "Right now."
There was a moments pause, then the Sycorax snarled, "We shall have this planet, Doctor. You name yourself their protector, so a challenge now stands." A second Sycorax brought forward a pair of swords. It took one and then threw the other down in front of the Doctor. Its red eyes, almost glowed at the prospect of battle. "Let us settle this by right of combat."
All around him from arching galleries, balconies and walkways the Sycorax cheered and snarled and beat their gauntletted fists on their bony breastplates. The Doctor looked down at the sword. If he didn't pick it up they'd probably shoot him where he stood, yet if he did take it he doubted he could win the fight. Picking it up though would give him a few more moments to try and do something, anything that might turn things in his favour. So he did.
"Outside then," he shouted, trying to make himself heard over the noise. "We'll do this properly, where the world can see. They might as well I'm doing for them."
The Doctor had no illusions about anybody actually seeing him, they were half a mile up: it was a relief really, he didn't want an audience. The cold air and the altitude would work in his favour, the Sycorax preferred warmth and humidity to prevent their exoskeletons from becoming too hard and dry.
Bringing the sword up into a defensive position, the Doctor decided that he didn't like it. He was reasonable certain that he'd actually learnt to fence once, it might have even been during his last regeneration or it could have been before that. He wasn't sure, things were jumbled, especially where his last body was concerned - he'd spent so many years living in so many places with not the faintest of clues who he was or what he was doing there.
The sword he was holding wasn't designed for fencing, it was too heavy, just an ugly lump of metal with a pointy end and bit of an edge. No finesse, but maybe that was better, he thought, there shouldn't be anything glamorous in ending a life. He was aware that his mind was running with far too many thoughts, that it was drifting off from doing what it was supposed to be doing. Equally he wasn't sure how to make it stop.
The Sycorax however had no such distractions and as soon as the Doctor's guard wavered, it struck out, the tip of its blade cutting into his side.
The Doctor stumbled back, confused more than hurt, the disconnection between his body and mind making the pain is a distant, abstract thing, like he was watching it happen to somebody else. Blood loss however was something he knew could do without, even if Time Lord could lose more than a human and be completely fine. Yet it didn't seem to be bleeding as it should. Energy crackled across his fingertips as he touched the wound and suddenly it all made sense.
There was energy still trapped in him. A warring mix if conflicting energy left by his failed regeneration and the heart of the TARDIS, and the cause of the heat still burning through him. It needed draining, like infection from a wound. Then he could heal. All he needed to do was decide the best way to remove it.
The Sycorax wasn't willing to let him have the time to think about this, and opened up another cut, this time on his arm, with a roar of triumph.
Rose was holding Harriet Jones' hand, scared to look, but too scared to look away.
The Doctor felt the same twist of energy, drawing closed the edges of the cut. "That all you've got?"
Sycorax snarled at him, teeth bared in its fury. "Kneel before me and die. You are beaten. You cannot win."
"Never a good idea to tell me that," the Doctor said enthusiastically grinning at him, wanting to unsettle his opponent. "It never works out well. You should be the one surrendering." He lowered his sword. "You could surrender now and you could all leave here unharmed. You have my word."
With a roar the Sycorax advanced on him again, battering the Doctor's sword, until he lost his grip on it. Then with a yell of triumph it dropped its own weapon and grasped the Doctor tightly by the throat. Lifting him off his feet with easy, it shook him, and slammed him down hard against the deck.
Rose was yelling at them to stop, that they were going to hurt him, kill him.
The Doctor stared up wild eyed at the creature pinning him to the ground. He couldn't breathe, which didn't make sense as he knew his respiratory bypass system should give him five minutes at least. The scene in front of him wavered, a host of memories crowded in. Echoing stone halls on Mars, a robot's cold fingers about his throat. The open deck of another ship, one of the shield platforms high over Arcadia, the sky was burning overhead as the bombardment increased.
He blinked and groaned, the world briefly coming back into focus. He couldn't reach his sword and honestly, he wasn't sure what he'd do even if he could. There was one possibility left and he pressed his hand against the side of the Sycorax's head and let their minds meet. It was frowned upon, but he was desperate, and it wasn't like the High Council could haul him in and put him on trial. "You want to know what I can do?" he said directly into its mind, his voice raw from all he saw and felt. "Then look."
The Sycorax was still for a moment and then its grip loosened and it screamed, its head jerking back as it tried to escape.
"Look!" the Doctor shouted, mere inches from its face, his grip tightening on its head. "Look at it. Now do you still want to fight me? Or do you want to run?"
The Sycorax screamed again, beating its head and the air around it with its fists. A glancing blow struck the Doctor's hand, breaking the link, both of them falling back on the deck.
Even with link broken the Sycorax howled. Lurching to its feet it stumbled away from. Whether it meant to go so close the edge, the Doctor had no idea, yet the result is the same. One moment it was on the edge, its head clutched in its hand, the next it was gone, tumbled over the edge and into oblivion.
"No!" The cry is torn from him, he hadn't meant for this to happen, for it to die. He hadn't meant to take another life. "No." It was a whisper now, as he looked the blood on his hands. The Doctor knew that was his own, remembered touching the now vanished wound on his side, but the symbolism, the guilt, still stood.
Shivering, weary, and all too aware that the stimulant was starting to fail, the Doctor used the dead Sycorax's discarded sword to help lever himself to his feet. He stood swaying slightly as he glared at them with cold fury. "You wanted to watch one of us die. Now one of your own is dead. Let that be enough. You will leave and you will never return. The Earth is defended. It will always be defended."
With no further argument the Sycorax teleported them and the TARDIS down into a deserted, litter strewn back street, not far from the Powell Estate. Still leaning on the sword for support, the Doctor was content let Rose do most of the talking. He was rubbish at what he called being domestic at the best of times.
"What's that?" Rose asked suddenly, looking up at the sky. Five huge beams of energy streaked high above them, before converging and shooting out towards the retreating Sycorax ship. The explosion a few seconds later flashing across the sky like virulent green lighting.
"They were leaving," the Doctor said looking at the continued flashes and crackles of light above them in anger and disbelief. "We'd won. I'd stopped them. No one else had to die."
"I'm sorry, Doctor, they could have come back or others like them," Harriet said, standing her ground. "This was too close, too many lives could have been lost."
"Not as many as they've just lost," he retorted. "That was murder."
"They came to enslave and kill us," she said refusing to raise her voice in anger. "I did what I had to do."
"You did it once you were safe. If I'd lost, would you have ordered them to fire if you'd still be onboard?" he asked, challenging her to contradict him. "Could you have ordered it then?"
"Yes, I would, Doctor. You may only see the insignificant human Prime Minister of a small island, but this country has stood alone before in the face of danger before and we did what had to be done no matter the personal cost." There was defiance and fire in her eyes, but her voice was still level, like she was addressing her cabinet. "So tell me Doctor if this were your planet, if it were your people facing slavery or annihilation how far would you go to keep them safe?"
Once he'd had that choice, more than half his lives ago, he'd had that chance. He could have destroyed the Daleks completely and forever. And he'd failed. Worse, he'd refused, he'd told himself he didn't have that right or power to snuff out an entire species. Even one so focused on destruction as they Daleks. If he'd known in that moment what was to come to, could he have done it? Or would still have doomed them?
Perhaps this was Harriet Jones' deciding moment, perhaps she had saved Earth from some threat he's not even realised. After everything that happened with Satellite 5 becoming the Game Station he doesn't know if he can trust his own memories of what the future should be. He hung his head, sick and exhaustion washing over him. He didn't have any answers for her, at least none that made him feel better about any of it. He knew he could destroy her career, just a few words, six little words that was all it would take and it would all come tumbling down, but what would be the point? They had the weapon now, and a terrible as it was there were far worse people to have control of it than Harriet Jones.
Realising that he wasn't going to answer her, Harriet stepped forwards, offering him her hand. "I appreciate everything you've done for us, Doctor, I really do, but you're only one man and one day maybe you won't be here or you'll be too late. You can't ask us to be defenceless, not when you know what is out there."
"Don't become the enemy. Don't make me have to stop you." He looked at her, pain in his eyes, then turned away, too dispirited and tired to argue any further. "Come on, Rose, time to go."
TBC
**Notes**.
The neural stimulant is a plot device for this story, but the ability of the Time Lords to control their body, even down to the cellular level, using their mind is, once again, from 8th Doctor novels and quite possibly Classic!Who as well, although I couldn't quote which episodes (I've not seen all that many of classic series) .
The chance the Doctor had to destroy the Daleks once and for all come from the 4th Doctor episodes The Genesis of the Daleks.
Yes I know this should have been the last part, but it totally got away from me, and Harriet Jones wanted her say, and while I don't agree with her call at the end in shooting the Sycorax down, they were beaten, I get why she did it.
I know this part was rather lacking in Doctor/Rose interaction, but the last part which will be posted in the next few days will be pretty much nothing else.